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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/25231156">needless to say I'm odds and ends</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/thirty2flavors/pseuds/thirty2flavors'>thirty2flavors</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>The Last of Us</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>5 Times, Angst, Canon Compliant, Character Study, F/F, Fluff, Gen, Missing Scene, all takes place within the timeframe of the game, minor ellie/cat and ellie/riley, mostly angst though</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-07-12</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-07-12</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-05 02:53:56</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>2,099</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/25231156</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/thirty2flavors/pseuds/thirty2flavors</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>Dina says, “Let’s play spin the bottle,” right as Ellie takes a sip of her drink, and she nearly chokes.</i>
</p><p> </p><p>Five big nights in the life of Ellie Williams, from Jackson to Salt Lake City to Seattle.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Dina/Ellie (The Last of Us), Ellie &amp; Joel (The Last of Us)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>17</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>123</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>needless to say I'm odds and ends</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>So I am among the crowd who absolutely loved The Last of Us Part II -- been a long time since a piece of media wrung quite that level of emotion out of me, or made me want to think and talk about it for so long after it was completed. I found myself wanting to write, and then found myself drawn to an old tried and true favourite of mine -- the missing scene collection. </p><p>Major spoilers for part 2, of course. All events take place within the span of TLOU2, and are based on scenes either referenced in Ellie's journal or in Ellie's dialogue. Fun fact: the names of Ellie's Jackson friends are taken from the patrol board in-game. </p><p>Title, of course, from <i>Take On Me</i>.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <b></b>
</p>
<p></p><div class="center">
  <p>
    <b>i. fourteen</b>
  </p>
</div>Dozens of them, Joel said.<p>Like one of those multi-coloured puzzle cubes Riley used to have back in Boston, Ellie keeps hoping if she rolls the thought around enough times it’ll click into place and make sense. Dozens of other people, immune like her. </p><p>So where are they?</p><p>“Teenagers need privacy, Joel,” Maria had said like some kind of expert, and so Ellie lays on her bed, stares at the ceiling of her shed-turned-bedroom-turned-house, and imagines what she’d say to the others. Her fellow immune. Other inconsequential quirks of nature. </p><p>She’d ask them the questions no one else can answer. Did they fight across the country for nothing, too? Did they feel important, only to learn they’re not? Did they wonder what the point of it all was? </p><p>Did they wake up in a hospital gown, confused, driving away from the Fireflies with more questions than ever before? </p><p>If so many people are immune, why the hell couldn’t Riley be one of them? </p><p>Frustrated, Ellie pushes up her long sleeve to rub two fingers over her bite mark. Joel says she needs to keep it hidden. Some overzealous lunatic might see it one day and try to head things off. It’s not even a <i>cool</i> scar, a “this is how I saved humanity, wanna see?” scar like she’d once hoped, or a badass scar, it’s just… ugly. Useless. A token of her own failure, just like the guy back in the QZ who fucked up his hands when he got too lazy to dilute those cleaning products they scrubbed the floors with—</p><p>Ellie sits up. A box of supplies from Maria, recently delivered, sits under the sink she has yet to clean. She looks at the box, at her bite mark, at Joel’s house through the window, and she makes a decision.</p>
<hr/>
<p></p><div class="center">
  <p>
    <b>ii. sixteen</b>
  </p>
</div>One more question she never got to ask the Fireflies: how contagious is she?<p>For the first time in a very long time, Ellie <i>tries</i> to remember that last night with Riley. </p><p>How Riley’s temper had gotten worse. How her speech had started to slur. How she kept saying she felt hot, and itchy, and hungry, that she had a headache, and her eyes hurt, all while Ellie felt nothing but mounting dread.</p><p>She feels the same dread now. </p><p>But Cat laughs through the movie they watch, and when she leans her head on Ellie’s shoulder, only Ellie’s the one who feels like burning up. </p><p>Cat falls asleep on Ellie’s bed not long after the credits roll across the screen, but Ellie has never felt more awake. Her heart’s been pounding for what feels like an entire day now. Maybe it’s going to explode. </p><p>She feels like a creep, but it’s impossible not to stare. Watching. Waiting.</p><p>Riley didn’t make it this long. Ellie’s pretty sure of that. </p><p>Dawn light filters through the blinds she forgot to close. Cat’s dark hair falls over her eyes when she rolls over. Ellie wants to brush it back, but Cat gets there first, swiping her hair back and opening her bleary eyes.</p><p>“Are you watching me sleep?” Cat groans. “Weirdo.”</p><p>“You wish,” says Ellie. “I’ve been waiting for you to get up so we can make breakfast. My stomach is eating itself.”</p><p>That part’s true—she’d been too nervous the night before to eat much of anything, and now she’s ravenous as she hops to her feet.</p><p>“Making me breakfast?” Cat smirks as she sits up. “Gee, you sure know how to treat a lady.”</p><p>“Duh.” Ellie does a mock bow. “I am a lady.” </p><p>She didn’t get a wink of sleep, but something stronger than any of Joel’s shitty coffee buzzes in her veins: hope.</p><p>“You know,” she calls over her shoulder, “every morning I think I’m gonna make pancakes, but I keep waffling.”</p><p>Cat throws Ellie’s own pillow at the back of her head.</p>
<hr/><p>
  <b></b>
</p>
<p></p><div class="center">
  <p>
    <b>iii. seventeen</b>
  </p>
</div>Ellie’s never been this fucking mad in her whole fucking life.<p>She stops to make camp about a day beyond Salt Lake, a tiny grievance added to thousands of others when she really doesn’t want to stop, at all. She wants to go, go, go, put as much distance between herself and that goddamn hospital and <i>him</i> as she can, and then she wants to find somewhere she can shoot a gun without risking a horde of Infected. </p><p>But Shimmer needs the break. </p><p>At least when Joel all-but-kidnapped her from the Fireflies, he stole a fucking car, too, so there’s no horrible nostalgia tied to this part of the trek back to Jackson. </p><p>Ellie builds a campfire and catches a rabbit, and she gnaws the meat off the bone because even without her appetite it feels good to tear into something. Once she’s picked the bones clean she snaps some of the smaller ones with her hands and tosses them into her fire. </p><p>There’s no one else around that she can see, but Ellie knows, deep inside—the same way she’d always known about the lie—that Joel is somewhere nearby. Circling like some goddamn shining knight. Like he’s doing her some big fucking favour. </p><p>“Protecting” her. </p><p>It makes her sick. </p><p>She digs the tape recorder out of her pocket and hits play for the dozenth time. Even though she’s memorized it, even though she thinks she’ll be hearing this recording on loop in her head until she finally kicks the bucket—uselessly, pointlessly, benefitting no one. </p><p>
  <i>Even if we found her, or by some miracle found someone else that’s immune, it’d make no difference. ‘Cause the only person who could develop a vaccine is dead.</i>
</p><p>The extra time Ellie’s had since Salt Lake wasn’t borrowed, it was stolen—from every Firefly, every Runner, everyone torn apart by Infected, corrupted by spores, starved in the QZs. </p><p>From Tess, and Henry and Sam.</p><p>From Riley. </p><p>Ellie hurls the tape recorder against a rock over and over until it cracks open, plastic busted, tape destroyed. It plays over and over in her head as she lays down by the fire and tries to sleep. </p><p>
  <i>The only person who could develop a vaccine is dead.</i>
</p><p>Fuck. <i>Fuck.</i> </p><p>
  <b></b>
</p>
<p></p><div class="center">
  <p>
    <b>iv. eighteen</b>
  </p>
</div>Dina says, “Let’s play spin the bottle,” right as Ellie takes a sip of her drink, and she nearly chokes.<p>Reactions ripple around the circle, too mixed for Ellie to tell if it’s a yea or a nay—but it doesn’t matter, because she’s already glancing around the fire in a panic. </p><p>Judging by the sideways look Steve gives Jesse, she’s not the only one. Every guy around the fire would leap at a bottle-shaped excuse to kiss Dina, but the prospect of kissing <i>Jesse’s ex</i> is a harder sell. Sure, the two are in one of their off-again phases, but everyone here knows they’ll drift together again before the month is out, the way they always do. </p><p>Ellie imagines they get bored. That they split apart periodically in hopes of something new and exciting, only to look around Jackson and realize they’ve already maxed out. Dina could have her pick of the litter, and she always picks Jesse in the end. </p><p>Ellie can’t imagine it. She’s already burnt her bridge with the only girl in Jackson who wants to kiss her outside some stupid game.</p><p>Like a mindreader, Cat catches Ellie’s eye across the fire, then wrinkles her nose.  “Yeah, no thanks. I’m out.” </p><p>Mike boos. Cat flips him off, then lights one of Steve’s hand-made cigarettes, an aloof gesture Ellie recognizes for nerves.</p><p>“Me too,” says Ellie, bolstered by not having to be the first. </p><p>Dina pouts, an almost convincing look of disappointment. “Aw, come on.” </p><p>Ellie shoots her a <i>what were you expecting?</i> look. “Sorry,” she says, though she isn’t. She pivots on the edge of her log bench. “You guys have fun.” </p><p>“Well if they’re out, I’m out,” Chad reasons. “You can’t play spin the bottle with no girls.”</p><p>“Dina and I are still playing, jackass,” says Tammy. She sounds legitimately annoyed. Ellie wonders if she and Dina planned this.</p><p>“Well <i>yeah</i>, but…” Chad gestures around the fire. He doesn’t need to explain. Two girls, five guys. The odds aren’t in his favour.</p><p>Despite desperately wanting to stay out of it, Ellie snorts. She hoists her guitar off the ground by her feet and starts to pluck at the strings, quiet, her shoulders angled away from commotion.</p><p>“Chicken,” Dina accuses. </p><p>Jesse, ever the mediator, lifts both hands. “Okay, okay, okay. Let’s do something else. How about Never Have I Ever?”</p><p>“Uh, sure, here’s one: never have I ever had fun playing that stupid game—”</p><p>The chatter derails from there. </p><p>Ellie tunes it out, losing herself in the vibration of the strings beneath her fingers, low notes that carry her away from the campfire and its social chaos. The crackle of the fire, her friends’ voices—it’s all white noise, a background track to the quiet twang of her guitar. </p><p>Then something bumps her, throwing off her D major. Dina pushes her way onto the log next to Ellie, her too-close face stretched into an expectant grin. “Hey, maestro. Whatcha playing?”</p><p>“Nothing,” Ellie lies. She’d rather jump into the fire than admit it’s a song she’s writing herself. “Just messin’ around.”</p><p>“Well, mess around louder, we could use the music.” Dina spins around as quick as she’d come, facing the rest. “We need some tunes, right?” </p><p>Ellie’s fingers freeze on the strings. She’s played guitar for people before, obviously—Cat’s heard her plenty, and Dina too, and… </p><p>But an audience is different. A solo is different. She follows Dina’s lead and looks behind them to a bunch of eager faces—well, eager faces and Cat. “Oh, I’m… uh… I’m not really… very good.”</p><p>“That is a<i> lie</i>,” Dina insists, “and we all know it. We all heard you play at Summerfest—”</p><p>“That was with, like, four other people! You could barely even hear me—”</p><p>“So you’ll do it for Maria but not for me?” Dina’s teasing, just teasing, that’s all, but her eyes are so big and dark and close—</p><p>“Yeah, ‘cause I like her better than you,” Ellie rebuffs, deciding to stare into the fire instead. She catches Cat rolling her eyes.</p><p>“Uh, ouch.”</p><p>“C’mon, Ellie,” says Jesse. Like Dina, he’s totally impervious to Ellie’s glare. “Serenade us.” He lifts a fist and pumps it in the air, turning Ellie’s name into a two-syllable chant. “El-lie! El-lie! El-lie!” </p><p>Steve and Chad follow his lead like they always do, and of course Dina joins in, and then Tammy. There are a lot of eyes on Ellie, but she feels Dina’s boring a hole in her skull. </p><p>“Oh my god.” Ellie finally concedes, nearly laughing even as she shakes her head. “I’m gonna play something just so you shut the fuck up.”</p><p>Dina looks proud of herself. “Silence in the crowd, please,” she demands of the others, her voice a pompous parody of Maria’s. Then she bumps her knee against Ellie’s when she says, “Over to you.”</p><p>Ellie’s glad the campfire is a good excuse for the way her cheeks are burning.</p><p>She shifts the guitar on her lap, centers herself around it again, and casts around for the right song. Her fingers find the right frets and she starts to strum. </p><p>“<i>Talkin’ away…</i>” </p><p>
  <b></b>
</p>
<p></p><div class="center">
  <p>
    <b>v. nineteen</b>
  </p>
</div>Jesse being here is good. Jesse can help. Together, maybe they can find Tommy, find Abby, and take these motherfuckers down quicker.<p>If things get too bad, he can take Dina back to Jackson. Leaving her here alone, sick, is a gamble Ellie never meant to take. Jesse can fix that. </p><p>Her two best friends are here, for her. To help her. She’s lucky. </p><p>Ellie tells herself all these things as she makes her way backstage and tries not to cry.</p><p>She feels fucking stupid, is the thing. Stupid for not asking Dina earlier what was wrong, for buying that bullshit about bad smells and bad food. Stupid for convincing Tommy to go off on his own when they should be out there <i>together</i>. Stupid for thinking that maybe just once the universe would make things easy on her, and that she’d find Abby in Seattle with a fucking welcome mat. Stupid for bringing Dina with her in the first place. Stupid for thinking Dina—</p><p>That Dina and Jesse—</p><p>“Fuck.” Ellie’s throat aches with the sob she keeps swallowing down. “Goddamn it.”</p><p>She storms past down the aisles of the auditorium, past the guitar, swiping at her wet eyes.</p><p>Everyone Ellie’s ever loved has died or left her. Even Joel.</p><p>Which will Dina be?</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Thank you for reading! First time writing for the fandom, so would love to know how well it came across.</p><p>Always welcome to come say hi on tumblr: <a href="https://oodlyenough.tumblr.com/">@oodlyenough</a></p></blockquote></div></div>
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